American Airlines Canceled Teen’s Ticket for ‘Skiplagging’

There are lots of travel hacks that you can find online. From using coupon codes to buying plane tickets months in advance, travelers are becoming smarter when it comes to getting the best bang for their buck. However, some workarounds aren’t exactly allowed by airlines.

A good example of which is a method called skiplagging. Skiplagging is when a passenger books a cheaper plane ticket on flights that have stopovers. But instead of getting off at the intended destination, the passenger gets off at the stopover.

Travel Hack

Recently, American Airlines canceled a teen’s plane ticket after the airline realized that he isn’t planning to board his connecting flight to New York. 17-year-old Logan Parsons bought a ticket from Gainesville, Florida to New York City. The flight comes with a stopover in Charlotte.

However, Parsons didn’t intend to head to New York. Instead, he wanted to get off in Charlotte. According to American Airlines, this is a violation of its terms and conditions.

The ticket was bought via the controversial website, Skiplagged.com. It’s a popular website where travelers can save money by taking advantage of this loophole.

Robert W. Mann Jr who currently runs an aviation consulting company said that “If you think of the way airlines price tickets, it’s not distance based, it’s not time travel based. It’s literally supply and demand based.”

It means that the more people looking to travel to a particular destination, the more expensive the tickets are going to get. And that’s what happened with Parsons.

Only American Airlines provides a direct flight from Gainesville to Charlotte. However, if a passenger buys a ticket from Gainesville to New York, you have different options. A passenger can use Delta and have a connecting flight via Atlanta. If not Delta, there’s another American flight to New York with a stopover in Miami. And with more options, consumers enjoy lower ticket prices.

Crackdown on Skiplagging

Nowadays, airlines are cracking down on this practice. Mann said that “When you buy a ticket from US airlines, whether it’s directly or indirectly, you do agree to their conditions of contract.” He added that this includes that “you’re going to use what you bought and specifically you’re not going to misuse what you bought.”

Hunter Parsons, the father of the teen said that this isn’t the first time they used Skiplagged. The older Parsons said that “We’ve used Skiplagged almost exclusively for the last five to eight years.” However, it was the first time his son traveled alone on a plane.

The gate agent suspected that his son isn’t going to New York after seeing his North Carolina driver’s license. Parsons said that “They kind of got out of him that he was planning to disboard in Charlotte and not going to make the connecting flight.” He also added that his son was brought to a security room for questioning. And that’s when an airline representative canceled the teen’s ticket. This made his family to buy him a new ticket for a flight directly to Charlotte. The family also said that they didn’t know that skiplagging is against American Airlines’ policy.